07.07.07

The Tour is On!

Posted in entertainment, spinning at 11:07 am by wendy

Yes, the one in France, but also the Tour de Fleece. Yay!

I have to admit, I thought it would be sort of like a 22 day sheep to shawl: obtain a fleece, process the fleece yourself, spin the fleece, etc. Wabi-sabi’s idea is much more inclusive, much better.Part of it is setting yourself a goal. I’m arrogant enough to think that if I set myself one single project-type goal, I’ll finish too soon, so I’m going to set a couple.

• Finish spinning and plying up all the merino-possum Mom gave me for a sweater for Nick.
• Finish spinning and plying up the 8.5oz of superwash Sheep 2 Shoe kit from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in Lapis colorway.
• Wash & comb out & spin my part of the Dorset fleece (bought from Laura Noll before she moved to VA) to recreate my favorite thrift shop bought cable sweater.

Given I also need to knit a pair of US size 11 socks on US1s in a stitch pattern I am always messing up on, that’s pretty good for my crafting goals for the month.

One of the rules of the Tour is no spinning before the start, but having just returned from BSG with all that gorgeous loot it was impossible to pull myself away, so I’ve probably already been DQ’d.

5.2 oz of 80% Merino 20% Tussah Silk in Anarion colorway from Dicentra Designs, purchased directly from the Dicentra Designs booth at Black Sheep, 2.3 oz turkish spindle with King Wood from Jenkins, purchased from Crown Mountain Farms.(links are both to Crown Mountain Farms product appropriate pages–I’d never heard of them before, but wow. Yummy stuff and nice people.)

Since I bought so much stuff that I really like from great producers, I’m going to be spacing out posting about it.

Anyway, this fiber was lovely and bright–the whole Dicentra Designs booth was awash with bright colors and contrasts and really stuck out. It seemed like a lot of muted muddy tones, or rovings with a fair amount of voids and naturally colored wools were everywhere (which I love too) but this booth really stood out, like a flock of colorful fiber parrots you could squish as hard as you wanted and none of them would take your fingers off.
It spins up beautifully. I’ve never used a Turkish spindle before but browsed the booklet at Crown Mountain and could manage to remember “under one, over two” for wrapping it (although it looks like I messed it up at times, we’ll see what horrible mess it comes to) and since I’d been spinning cashmere-silk laceweight on the teeny little 17 gram spindle from Spindlewoods, this spindle felt very heavy indeed.
But it spins like a dervish, Nick loves it. It just feels good in your hands.
By the time I post next, I’ll probably be done with the Sheep 2 Shoe kit, I can’t wait to talk about that, actually. (How lame am I? I am very lame. ;))

Oh, speaking of lame, my ankle’s fine. I waited a little over a week and then got around to getting an x-ray. Our doc looked at it and said everything was fine, no worries. Weirdly, it’s been stiffer lately than it was before, I may alternate running in the pool with running on the treadmill when I go back to the gym this week. It is still a little swollen and cankley looking, I really hope that goes away. ‘Cuz I’m vain and lame. But I thank everyone who commented with their concern, I’m sorry I’m so lame I didn’t get around to e-mailing back in person, I was caught up in pre-trip kerfluffling.

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